Heart in Bloom painting process

In the Make Art that Sells Class with Lilla Rogers, Part A, week 4 was for the wall art market and our assignment was to create an abstract collage piece. This was another first for me, but I really adored the process and had a blast.

Here is one of the paintings I created and photos of the steps. I'm so happy I took these photos while I was working! This must have been when I got the paint on my phone case.

Mood board and drawing

I pinned up my color inspiration for the assignment. Would you believe I've had these magazine pages for quite a few years? I used to be an avid home decor magazine reader.

Background

I transferred my drawing onto the painted acrylic canvas with white transfer paper.

Text collage

I made a collage of various photocopied dover engravings, magazine clippings, and vintage sears catalog pages. I used modge podge to stick it together and seal it on top.

Placing the bones of the piece

I placed the cut out shapes and the beginnings of my heart in place.

Filling it in

I made a quick sketch on my ipad using Procreate to see what the piece's coloring might look like. I referenced the sketch and got started putting it all together.

Getting there

More collage bits

Adding more collage pieces to the heart.

More details

Painting over collage heart pieces to fuse it together.

Black outline

Here I've added my black painted outline to add more contrast and pop out the shapes of the piece.

The finished piece

I found the process easy and fun, so that must mean I should do more, right?

The finished piece that I submitted in class most likely isn't that marketable as far as licensing goes, but based on how much joy I got from making it, I think I can afford to spend more time making more art like this.

I recommend checking out Mati Rose McDonough's book, Daring Adventures in Paint, as well as her ecourse of a similar name. I used her technique for creating a background and transferring a sketch to the canvas.

Daring Adventures in Paint: Find Your Flow, Trust Your Path, and Discover Your Authentic Voice-Techniques for Painting, Sketching, and Mixed Media

By Mati Rose McDonough

Lilla Roger's Make Art that Sells, Part B

Week 1: Paper

The theme was vintage Christmas ornaments and candy. I love drawing and making Christmas themed pieces, so I had a lot of fun with this. 

Week 2: Baby Apparel

The theme was camping and campers. I let my imagination wander and when I sat down to work on the mini assignment, I thought of mouses and camping. What would it look like for mice to camp? What would they travel in and sleep in? A tin can or a sardine can? A hammock to take a nap? What would a campfire look like? A votive candle?

I was intimidated to draw characters again, but I found the assignment easy because it was such a fun topic and the ideas came easily. I would love to do more of these sorts of animal illustrations.

When and after I made finished my design, whenever my 2-year-old was near my computer, he'd say, "I want to see the mouse". Maybe I'll make him a special t-shirt or design a mouse softie for him.

Week 3: Scrapbooking

For our mini assignment, we drew typewriters and cameras and for the final assignment, we created a sheet of scrapbooking elements. Since I had to work quickly this week, I inked the drawings, scanned them in, and processed them in illustrator. Then, I made the artwork into layers and exported to photoshop to add texture.

Week 4: Editorial

We were to create a map of where we live. This was the week I was slapped with a nasty cold, but I got the assignment done. I drew everything with black ink and processed everything in illustrator.

Week 5: Party Paper

The mini involved working with Ukrainian and Bavarian folk art. I drew some patterns and a girl with a large headdress of flowers. This last week was fun, though I missed the mark on the final assignment as the girl should have been more of a generic nature for party goods. I think the girl would be pretty on another product, though.

I had a much easier time with this girl character, maybe because I kept her simple. I would love to work on the peacock idea and also change the colors I used. I'm going to go back and add texture and change things up and use the art for something else. Perhaps a fabric pattern.

If you're an artist, illustrator, designer, painter, etc. and looking to learn some awesome tips on various markets, plus be among wonderful peers in an active and welcoming facebook group, plus work on super-motivating projects, I can't recommend Lilla's Make Art that Sells course. The best class I've ever taken. Hands down.

I hadn't done much art in perhaps about 5 years since having my little boys. I really needed a jumpstart to get going, get motivated, to just just down and DO something. Lilla's class was exactly what I needed, and the inspiration I felt from the classes is still there, simmering and ready to go.

Lilla Roger's Make Art That Sells, Part A

Taking Lilla Roger's Make Art That Sells was like a major kick in the ass. I was so motivated and inspired the whole time. Amazing.

We had a new assignment each week, along with fantastic material for each of the five markets Lilla covered. Before we got the big assignments, we were given mini assignments that got us warmed up to the subject material we would be working with later in the week. Even though the class was very intense, everything was broken down to digestible bits.

Week 1 was for bolt fabric. We made a retro kitchen inspired pattern with pyrex and mushrooms.

I tried something different for myself and used a brush marker to do some of my sketches.

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For week 2, and the home decor market, we made plates, and used pods, seeds and succulents to inspire our designs.

Week 3: Children's Books.

We delved into characters and for our mini, we drew snail characters. For the big assignment, and children's book, the main character was a snail for the fairy tale The Snail and the Rose Tree. I haven't had much experience drawing characters and faces, but that's why I took the class - to challenge myself.

Week 4: Wall art

Week 5: Gift Market. We created a zipper pouch.

I live to learn

If you knew how many classes I’ve taken or have signed up for this year, you might wonder if you’re on the right site. Is this Erica Hite, with the two young boys that keep her on her toes during the day, with a towel to sop up frequent messes and a perpetual spatula in her hand? Yes, that’s me. I must have a screw loose. But I have urges, I tell you, to make things, and be creative, so here I am again, starting fresh.

I’ve only now got my site up, so I’m way way behind on chronicling my love affairs with online classes. But I will endeavor to make posts of all the ones I’ve taken so far (in between my class assignments, of course).

The classes I've taken include, in no particular order:

• Marie Forleo's B-school
• Lilla Roger's Make Art That Sells (Part A and Part B)
• Design Garden's Hand Drawn Vector Art
• Paint Your Story with Mindy Lacefield
• Girl's Guide to Web Design
• Daring Adventures in Paint and Life with Mati Rose
• Work Art Play
• Skillshare (OK, too many to list at this moment, more later)
• And...coming early next year...Make Art That Sells: Assignment Bootcamp

I'm getting a LOT out of these classes. It's been a pleasure to soak in all the great information and make art or write down plans for now and the future.

When do you get to call yourself an artist? Or an illustrator?

I've been doing this designer thing since the late 90's, but when it comes to illustration, I still feel like a noob. When I had figure drawing thrown into the mix of my interior design curriculum (which later became graphic design curriculum), I froze up when I had to sit down and draw a figure. Still to this day, I kind of freeze up if someone is standing behind me watching me draw. Or design. Yes, I know, I should get over it, but ick, I haven't. Anyway, I didn't take art classes in high school, and I didn't take too much of drawing classes in college, either. When I had to draw a person, the head was usually magically missing.

Over the years, I yearned and yearned and yearned to draw characters or paint like other artists. I certainly never felt I could call myself an artist. OK, maybe a graphic artist, though I never liked that term. Graphic designer sounded much more fancy. I did identity design, packaging design, gift product design, and on and on. I often got to work with other illustrators artwork. I cut art out and played with it to make a snazzy product or pattern. But what I really yearned for was to do my own thing. I've always wanted to, but didn't know how or wondered if I could succeed because I hated being a beginner. It's hard to be a beginner.

Everyone starts as a beginner! You have to start somewhere. And what I've heard time and again is that you simply need to do the time to get better. I'm going to share my projects and progress as I grow as an illustrator and artist. I have and I will be taking online classes, plus creating my own assignments to improve this coming year.